Outward and Return

Leiden CS to Amsterdam CS
I was sat down on a double seat with nobody sitting opposite either. My peace was disturbed somewhat when three guys came stumbling along with half litre cans of Heineken in their hands. When I am sitting on a Dutch train that generally means two things, for one they are foreigners of the British or Irish persuasion and for two they are sure to take a pew next to me. The beredrosed rugby shirt immediately revealed the provenance of one of my fellow travellers while the accents of the other two were deepest Belfast. I thanked the man above that I had decided to read a Spanish magazine rather than my novel in English so I could pretend not to understand a thing. Anyway, I would be lying if I had said that I have never heard such rough language but it always comes as a shock to hear so many f**ks in a public place and there is a time and a place to discuss your sexual exploits, a public train is not one of them. I was glad that nothing gave me away as an Irish person because otherwise I may have had to humour these guys. Two of the guys live here so they surely know that everybody here can understand English. I guess that some people just don't care what kind of ambassador they are being for their home country.

Amsterdam CS to Leiden CS
An Arab looking man took a seat opposite me. A couple of minutes later two women in veils came along who were looking for a place to sit so I moved my bag on to my lap. I wasn't surprised that the man moved over to sit beside me and let the two women sit together. They began chatting in Arabic and I was surprised that I could hear as many words as I could though I could not understand anything except the 'maktub' I learned from reading "The Alchemist". The man saw that I was reading a book in English and asked me where I was from since he assumed that I was not Dutch (many Dutch read books in English so it is not a correct assumption by any means). He told me that they were from Jordan and were speaking Arabic. He was surprised that when I said that I had realised that and he seemed even more shocked that I knew anything of the Arabic world. In a very short time he started talking about America and September 11 and Palestine and Israel and the West. He felt quite misunderstood as an Arab and felt that the 'West' knew far too little about his part of the world. I tried to let him know that I actually agreed with much of what he was saying, I think that we in the west do need to learn more about the real lives of people in the Middle East and not be too quick to assume. However, my fellow passenger was so convinced of the existence of a monolithic 'West' that I think he didn't seem to accept that there are diverse opinions across Europe and America. I enjoyed meeting this man because he was from somewhere I know little about. He knew very little about where I am from either only he didn't seem to realize it.